“There were times we went without food. We moved a lot because we couldn’t afford rent,” she said.

Bartholow grew up in a working-class family in Northern California. But then her father got injured and began to struggle with addiction. Her mom began working less so she could take care of him. Before long, the family could no longer make ends meet.

“We went bankrupt because there were medical emergencies that couldn’t be paid for,” she said. “There were medical emergencies that we didn’t seek help for.”

Bartholow says the goal for the next governor shouldn’t be to make poverty more bearable for people through assistance programs — it should be to end poverty completely. In California nearly 2 million kids, or 20 percent, live in poverty.

And while Bartholow said the situation is dire, the current governor’s race gives her some hope.

“We have candidates who have long-standing campaign goals to address poverty,” she said. “We have candidates who have stepped forward in a big way to call for the end of childhood poverty.”

(L-R) Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, state Treasurer John Chiang, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa participated in a governor candidate forum on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017. (Photos courtesy of Wikicommons)

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa grew up poor. He said he’d take on child poverty in several ways, including scrutinizing the state’s welfare system, known as CalWORKS.

“I intend to focus on early child education, critical, on universal preschool, on full-day kindergarten,” he said. “I think we need to make sure CalWORKS is working for people.”

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom believes intervention needs to start between the ages of zero and 3 to ensure kids are ready for school.

“When our state and society allows kids to waste their God-given potential because they aren’t given the tools to succeed, then we are only hurting ourselves,” Newsom said. “Ending childhood poverty will be the North Star of my administration because it’s the right thing to do.”

State Treasure John Chiang said California has an obligation to address childhood poverty and that he would take a comprehensive approach.

“I strongly support the Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act, as well as robust investments in home visiting programs, after-school and summer school programs, workforce development and affordable housing,” he said. “I also strongly support free child care and universal pre-kindergarten that provide children with every opportunity to succeed and achieve the American Dream, and school meal and summer food programs that address hunger and food security in our communities.”

Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin has an eight-point plan to address child poverty. It includes getting homeless children off the streets, building more affordable housing, offering three months of fully paid maternity leave and providing access to child care and universal preschool.

“Child care and preschool costs as much as rent or college in California,” she said. “So we need to take away this burden from poor families, while offering young children from all economic backgrounds the chance for their best start.”

Of course, paying for all these noble ideas is the hard part.

When candidates or advocates talk about “changing priorities,” that means spending less on something else. But what?

Republican venture capitalist John Cox is running for California governor in 2018. (Courtesy John Cox Campaign)

Republican businessman John Cox says California’s Democratic leaders are waging a war on the poor and middle class.

“Our schools are failing underprivileged children because the politicians care more about teacher union contributions than they do about kids,” he said. “They disproportionately attack the poor with regressive gas and sales taxes, while imposing regulations that have made it impossible to build affordable housing.”

Two other Republican candidates — Assemblyman Travis Allen and former congressman Doug Ose — did not reply to a request for comment by publication time.

Alissa Anderson, senior policy analyst with the California Budget & Policy Center, said there are a number of good policy options for reducing child poverty in the state.

“Among the best approaches would be further strengthening the California Earned Income Tax Credit to reach more working families and provide larger credits,” she said, “increasing CalWORKs grants to help families moving from welfare to work, and funding more early care and education slots, which would free up family income for other expenses and help mitigate poverty’s effects on children.”

Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, is thrilled the candidates are talking about poverty. He says increasing access to affordable child care, expanding state-funded preschool and transitional kindergarten, and connecting more new parents with home visiting programs are critical. But perhaps the most crucial element is ensuring the campaign trail talk translates to action.

“These are not insurmountable problems,” he said. “Let’s band together and really prioritize solving this because the resources are there, just our prioritization is off.”

Lempert said between a projected state budget surplus and some potential tax measures, the state should be able to direct more money toward ending child poverty. He and other advocates are hopeful California’s next governor will do just that.

Thanks for an informative summary about children living in poverty and the positions that the candidates have taken on dealing with it. I did not know, for example, that 2 million kids are living in these kinds of circumstances. I am a retired mental health professional who worked the last 20 years in a public mental health clinic where the vast majority of our clients were kids and their parents living in poverty if not being homeless. Thus, I saw and tried to help these clients deal with the impact that their being poor was h having on their emotional, familial, social, and educational functioning. It was very challenging work to say the least. While my colleagues and I helped many of them there were still many more whose problems were too severe for us to be of much benefit. And still countless many more who we never even saw in the first place.

Errol

We should include in this discussion on investing more on education, especially from kindergarten through 12th grade. Our children is our future. Rather than build more jail facilities we should build more schools and concentrate on improving our school system that allows every kid to get an education to reach the full potential to success. In turn, contribute to their community.

Steve Frisch

Great article about a topic few Californians really know much about or think deeply about. Although it is fantastic that so many of the Gubernatorial candidates are thinking about this issue…a strategy focused narrowly on lifting children out of poverty is only a start. The larger problem is an endemic and gradual reduction of the economic conditions of the working and middle class in California; it is driven by a combination of forces such as low wages, global competition, technological innovation, a regressive tax policy and the loss of meaningful work in poor communities, urban and rural. While we are lifting children out of poverty we need to focus a considerable amount of attention of workforce education and training, job creation, fair wages, adopting technology and innovation as an economic engine, and changing tax policy to increase the disposable income for working families. What we really need is a comprehensive strategy that aggregates public and private resources to end poverty in California that can be an on-going commitment.

Author

Katie Orr

Katie Orr is a Sacramento-based reporter for KQED’s Politics and Government Desk, covering the state Capitol and a variety of issues including women in politics, voting and elections and legislation. Prior to joining KQED in 2016, Katie was state government reporter for Capital Public Radio in Sacramento. She’s also worked for KPBS in San Diego, where she covered City Hall.

Katie received her masters degree in political science from San Diego State University and holds a Bachelors degree in broadcast journalism from Arizona State University.

In 2015 Katie won a national Clarion Award for a series of stories she did on women in California politics. She’s been honored by the Society for Professional Journalists and, in 2013, was named by The Washington Post as one of the country’s top state Capitol reporters. She’s also reported for the award-winning documentary series The View from Here and was part of the team that won national PRNDI and Gabriel Awards in 2015. She lives in Sacramento with her husband. Twitter: @1KatieOrr